Amazons in Mythology

AMAZONS,
an ancient legendary nation of female warriors. They were said to have
lived in Pontus near the shore of the Euxine sea, where they formed an
independent kingdom under the government of a queen, the capital being
Themiscyra on the banks of the river Thermodon (Herodotus iv. 110-117).
From this centre they made numerous warlike excursions—to Scythia,
Thrace, the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean, even
penetrating to Arabia, Syria and Egypt. They were supposed to have
founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, Paphos.
According to another account, they originally came to the Thermodon from
the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azov). No men were permitted to reside in
their country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from
dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighboring tribe. The male
children who were the result of these visits were either put to death or
sent back to their fathers; the female were kept and brought up by their
mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of
war (Strabo xi. p. 503). It is said that their right breast was cut off
or burnt out, in order that they might be able to use the bow more
freely; hence the ancient derivation of ‘Amaxones from mafos, “without
breast.” But there is no indication of this practice in works of art, in
which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the
right is frequently covered. Other suggested derivations are: a
(intensive) and mafos, breast, “full-breasted”; a (privative) and masso,
touch, “not touching men”; maza, a Circassian word said to signify
“moon,” has suggested their connection with the worship of a moon-
goddess, perhaps the Asiatic representative of Artemis.

The Amazons appear in connection with several Greek legends. They
invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon, who was sent out
against them by Iobates, the king of that country, in the hope that he
might meet his death at their hands (Iliad, vi. 186). They attacked the
Phrygians, who were assisted by Priam, then a young man (Iliad, iii.
189), although in his later years, towards the end of the Trojan war,
his old opponents took his side against the Greeks under their queen
Penthesileia, who was slain by Achilles (Quint. Smyr. i.; Justin ii. 4;
Virgil, Aen. i. 490). One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by
Eurystheus was to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen
Hippolyte (Apollodorus ii. 5). He was accompanied by his friend Theseus,
who carried off the princess Antiope, sister of Hippolyte, an incident
which led to a retaliatory invasion of Attica, in which Antiope perished
fighting by the side of Theseus. The Amazons are also said to have
undertaken an expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of
the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by Thetis.
The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so terrified the horses, that
they threw and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retire.
They are heard of in the time of Alexander the Great, when their queen
Thalestris visited him and became a mother by him, and Pompey is said to
have found them in the army of Mithradates.

The origin of the story of the Amazons has been the subject of much
discussion. While some regard them as a purely mythical people, others
assume an historical foundation for them. The deities worshipped by
them were Ares (who is consistently assigned to them as a god of war,
and as a god of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis, not
the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic deity in some
respects her equivalent. It is conjectured that the Amazons were
originally the temple-servants and priestesses (hierodulae) of this
goddess; and that the removal of the breast corresponded with the
self-mutilation of the galli, or priests, of Rhea Cybele. Another theory
is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travelers brought back
reports of tribes ruled entirely by women, who carried out the duties
which elsewhere were regarded as peculiar to man, in whom alone the
rights of nobility and inheritance were vested, and who had the supreme
control of affairs. Hence arose the belief in the Amazons as a nation
of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by women. According
to J. Vurtheim (De Ajacis origine, 1907), the Amazons were of Greek
origin: “all the Amazons were Dianas, as Diana herself was an Amazon.”
It has been suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons being
assigned to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology, Heracles and
Theseus—who in the tasks assigned to them were generally opposed to
monsters and beings impossible in themselves, but possible as
illustrations of permanent danger and damage, -- shows that they were
mythical illustrations of the dangers which beset the Greeks on the
coasts of Asia Minor; rather perhaps, it may be intended to represent
the conflict between the Greek culture of the colonies on the Euxine and
the barbarism of the native inhabitants.

In works of art, combats between Amazons and Greeks are placed on the
same level as and often associated with combats of Greeks and centaurs.
The belief in their existence, however, having been once accepted and
introduced into the national poetry and art, it became necessary to
surround them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural
beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow,
spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called
pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having
apparently been the goddess Athena. In later art they approach the
model of Artemis, wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on
the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian -- that
is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were
usually on horseback but sometimes on foot. The battle between Theseus
and the Amazons is a favorite subject on the friezes of temples (e.g.
the reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae, now in
the British Museum), vases and sarcophagus reliefs; at Athens it was
represented on the shield of the statue of Athena Parthenos, on
wall-paintings in the Theseum and in the Poikile Stoa. Many of the
sculptors of antiquity, including Pheidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas and
Phradmon, executed statues of Amazons; and there are many existing
reproductions of these.

The history of Bohemia affords a parallel to the Greek Amazons.
During the 8th century a large band of women, under a certain
Vlasta, carried on war against the duke of Bohemia, and enslaved or put
to death all men who fell into their hands. In the 16th century the Spanish explorer Orellana asserted that he had come into
conflict with fighting women in South America on the river Maranon,
which was named after them the Amazon or river of the Amazons, although
others derive its name from the Indian amassona (boat-destroyer),
applied to the tidal phenomenon known as the “bore.” The existence of
“Amazons” (in the sense of fighting women) in the army of Dahomey in
modern times is an undoubted fact, but they are said to have died out
during the French protectorate. For notable cases of women who have
become soldiers, reference may be made to Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah
Snell.

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